From the outside, it definitely looks like the closer it gets to hardware, the better engineers at Apple get. Metal is awesome, Metal shading language and recent clang progress not bad too, Swift a little bit wonky but interesting — but the quality of their customer-facing software, especially ui stuff (not design, but I engineering) is getting worse and worse. It just doesn't "just work" anymore.
One commenter - I believe it was here on HN - said something I thought was very insightful. They said it's difficult to see software when you're looking at your computer edge-on - and that's apparently the only way Apple ever looks at their products anymore.
For the first time in the last ten years, I have downgraded my OS to 10.9 after having a disastrous experience with 10.10. I don't plan on upgrading back, at least not on this computer.
It's when your Linux distro on a 5 year old HP laptop seems more polished than your 27" iMac from 2 years ago that you begin to wonder what has gone wrong at Apple.
Two days ago I said aloud to a screen ", OS X is turning into Windows".
Well I use Windows daily as a dev at a MS Partnered company but you are still correct in that when I said OSX is turning into Win I was thinking of the XP/Vista era. I am not a huge fan of either 7 or 8 tbh, but that is acknowledged as a personal preference in much the same way as I sold a practical commuter car to buy something "i like driving more".
The problem with OSX now, as I see it, is that as Windows irons out the problems that made *nix users dislike it, OSX seems to be allowing those problems (both engineering and usability) to creep in.
Please, if someone can sell a Linux with the same polish as Mac OSX, and as low-administration time, I would agree to pay about $200 per year for it. I've switched away from Ubuntu after being unable to resolve a problem after upgrade two years ago (which cost me 4 days). I spend 2x more on computers for Macbooks, not because of the hardware but because of Mac OSX.
I don't know how large is the audience for a paid workproof Linux, but I wish someone would build it.
Yes, that would be very cool. And I say that as a happy OS X user. Competition in that space would be good for the customers. Unfortunately all the workstation companies went down the drain. SGI, Sun, etc. But who knows what the future holds in store?
This. Most devs I know have Macs for precisely this reason -- software, not hardware. If anything, many would prefer the hardware (diversity) offered elsewhere.
